The United

An exhibition October 2, 2020 – January 24, 2021 examining the complicated topic of immigration which affects many people closely, as members of diverse communities, as descendants of immigrants, or as immigrants themselves

The exhibition with artwork from 12 artists from Belgium, Northern Ireland, Russia and the US explored the possibilities for proactive engagement with immigration issues and offered a message of resilience, hope and resistance. 

The exhibition was curated by Johanna Lasner, an independent curator and artist based in White Rock, Canada.

Artists were selected by a jury which included Karla Lamb, a multidisciplinary Chicana poet and artist based in Pittsburgh and Jaime Guerrero, a glass sculptor and mixed media artist from Los Angeles living in Pittsburgh. 

"We hope to inspire and come together as an interconnected active community through participation, by being responsive to current concerns; and even more so, by supporting and celebrating diversity," Lasner said.

"This project, 'The United,' delves into the question of how critical art may answer to the fabrication of an immigration system that addresses inequality, human rights violations, and exclusion,” said Lasner. 

Najah Alboushi is an American-Syrian artist and writer that grew up in the midwest. Alboushi’s work investigates her identity as an American-Syrian woman. An identity she constantly questions, references, and reinvents as she goes.

Sandra Bacchi is a Brazilian photographer. She investigates the sense of belonging that immigrants lose when they leave their homeland. 

Ibraheem Basree is a 23-year-old glass artist who emigrated to Syria from Iraq and then to the US. His narrative is based on his memories living in Iraq and immigrating to America. 

May Maylisa Cat is a multidisciplinary artist who grew up in Chicago. "My work explores the Southeast Asian identity through imported cultural productions, immigration, and intergenerational trauma,” Cat said.

Tali Grinshpan is a glass artist born and raised in Tel Aviv, Israel. “The ever-changing life of the land, in particular that of Israel, where I was born, and that of my present home in Northern California, inspires me," said Grinshpan. 

Alan Iwamura is the glass studio manager at the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, OH. He explores glass in its many forms to create artwork that seeks to bridge the gap between the self and ones heritage.

Priscilla Kar Yee Lo uses glass to convey her ideas and current concerns about the world. ‘Biomythography,' a word coined by American writer and civil rights activist Audrey Lorde,  best describes her work.

Alexander Lozano, also known as Cardoza, is an artist who uses participatory art to bring attention to interpersonal relationships between people, objects and their environments that usually go unseen in a mundane life cycle. 

Alison Lowry is a glass artist living and working from her studio, "Schoolhouse Glass" in Saintfield, Co. Down. Northern Ireland. She has always been interested in textiles, especially clothing. She says, “Fabric preserves the essence of its maker.”

John Moran is a politically and socially engaged hot glass sculptor, mixed media artist, studio co-founder and operator at Gent Glas. "It is within the contradictions of the politically powerful that my work has evolved,” he said.

Kristine Rumman is an interdisciplinary artist whose work often investigates the possibilities of what art can do that politics cannot. A tragicomic storyteller Lauren Fueyo is an artist, writer, performer, and educator. 

Vera Sadakova is an engineer in art processing of materials, combining her artistic skills with her technical mind. "In my work, human hands symbolize those people who can be called one common word – migrants," she said.

if art is to remain among the few public hubs where differences in culture, ideology and history can coexist," said Lasner.

where interests, agendas, and concerns of all members of the affected communities are addressed in the context of the collective humanity," said curator Johanna Lasner. 

"We hope to create opportunities for reflection, dialogue & discovery, where awareness can become a form of resistance and luckily generate…more robust, fair & reality-based immigration legislation," said Lasner.